Tuesday 14 August 2012 12.37 EDT
First published on Tuesday 14 August 2012 12.37 EDT

In the blink of an eye the London 2012 Olympic Games are over, leaving us with fantastic memories, amazing athletic performances and a legacy to inspire a generation through sport. For the global anti-doping community this means a legacy of clean sport, where tomorrow's athletes believe in striving to be the best they can without the use of performance-enhancing substances.

London 2012 has taught us many things, not least confirming the public's suspicions that some athletes dope. The World Anti-Doping Agency reported that more than 100 potential Olympians were stopped from competing at the Games because of doping, and the International Olympic Committee announced a number of positive tests during the course of the Games. This is good news for clean athletes around the world.

However, the pressure on today's athletes, coaches and indeed nations continues to increase and the whole sporting community needs to understand this and manage the need to "win at all costs". Working closely with law enforcement agencies, we are well aware of the availability of performance enhancing substances to athletes. Combine this with the weakness of human nature and it is easy to see how people are tempted to risk everything for the sake of success.

Proactive education programmes and strong deterrence messaging, rolled out on a global scale, have played an important part in preventing dopers from reaching the podium at these Games. Equally we have seen a much more focused testing effort to make our tests really count. Using intelligence has proved successful in sharpening our collective focus and should be recognised as the way in which we all must work in the future. But tackling doping in sport starts with prevention, not tests, and we are extremely fortunate in the UK to have had the support of government, Locog, GlaxoSmithKline and King's College London, who have all contributed in ensuring every athlete understood that doping would not be tolerated at these Games.

However, performance enhancement is not a problem exclusive to elite sport. The growth of online steroid sales corresponds to a worrying increase in the number of young people seeking to enhance their image through the use of such substances. By working closely with the police and UK Border Agency, we have a better grasp on the scale of this problem and it is clear this needs addressing from beyond the realms of just sport.

Collaboration is essential to our success in tackling doping and it has been a huge achievement for our own athletes and sports to have shown such commitment to clean sport. Their success in the medal table mirrors their dedication to our anti-doping programmes. The challenge is to ensure that our next generation of champions continues to have the same attitude.